I
am a cracked crystal vase holding a rainbow cloud. The colors leak
out through the cracks. The crystal is too rigid; it can't contain
them. The colors are too strong, too big. Too bold. And the crystal
is precise. It desperately wants--no, needs--to be precise. But the
colors have no patience. They can't wait for precision. They happen.
Whether the crystal is ready to contain them or not.
You
think this is a metaphor. The crystal is my analytical mind. The
rainbow is my feelings. My heart. And that's true. It is a metaphor,
but metaphors aren't what you think they are here on Earth.
You
think that metaphors are stories that hold some truth. Different
metaphors can hold different aspects of the truth, can describe the
same situation from different angles. But they're all made-up
stories, and we're lying in bed, with my head on your shoulder, no
matter how many stories I tell. I could be a labyrinth with a key in
the center. I could be a gryphon, torn between its lion nature and
its eagle ways. But I am still a human girl, and my head is on your
shoulder.
That's
one kind of metaphor. But there's another.
An
accurate metaphor.
An
accurate metaphor is more true than all the other possible metaphors
for the same space-time object. It's so true that in some sense--in
another space-time plane--it's not a metaphor. It's the actual fact.
I
am here on Earth with you, describing my feelings and the
insecurities that cause me to try to control them with a breakable,
rigid vessel. My fear that you'll hurt me. That we'll give up on each
other. But I am also a creature of glittering angles, filled to
bursting with gaseous colors, striding across an alien world,
underneath a sky like stained glass on the other side of our
space-time continuum. Only a twist away.
And
you're there with me. Your colors are escaping your glittering
crystal exoskeleton too. Because you're afraid too. Afraid of
failing. Afraid you'll never understand me. I am too complex.
But
I love you, and when we embrace--our rainbow selves and our crystal
selves will come into perfect alignment, because you love me too.
And
our love heals the cracks and soothes the colors from a roiling
billowing boil down to a wispy whisper of pastels.
So
hold me, and I'll hold you.
On
a planet with a toxic atmosphere--no sky that beautiful could be
painted by gases our human bodies would find breathable--universes
away and also right here, we'll be calm together.
